Health Care Financing in Central America and the Andean Region: A Workshop Report

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Abstract
The goal of “health for all by the year 2000” was endorsed by member nations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) at the International Conference on Primary Health Care, held at Alma Ata, U.S.S.R., in September 1978. The goal of attaining total health care coverage of the population had been agreed upon by the Ministers of Health of the Americas at their III Special Meeting in 1972. Meeting again in 1977, the ministers took stock of the region's accomplishments and remaining shortcomings in preparation for the Alma Ata conference. They concluded that their institutional health care systems, which bear the major responsibility for providing total coverage, had not yet attained this goal; among the reasons mentioned were institutional rigidities that made it difficult to determine and respond to unattended needs for health care, and the financial inaccessibility to large population groups of the institutions providing health services. These problems were compounded by a “significant increase in the cost of medical care … which reduces the resources available for providing universal coverage.”

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